How bad are the bailouts?

[eugenekop]

The American government has bailed out a lot of financial and other institutions in the last two years. The Austrians are of course against it because the bailouts remove some of the responsibility from those who took the bad decisions. What I'd like to know is how much of the responsibility did the bailouts take? CEOs of these institutions were fired anyway (as far as I know), the shareholders lost a lot of money. So were the bailouts really that bad? Those who should have been punished by the market were punished in a significant way by the government as well. Isn't that so?

[RonPaulCult]

Others here know more than I, and will have better answers for you. Most CEOs did not get fired at all from any accounts I have read. Those who committed fraud certainly weren't prosecuted. As for the shareholders, there are a few examples of companies that lost everything. But most companies survived and stocks have rebounded from their lows thanks to the bailouts and basically the fed propping up the stock market.

The bailouts were very good for Wall Street. It will be main street that will have to pay for it all. So basically, they stole from the poor to give to the rich, the very rich who caused the mess in the first place (with full knowledge that the government would save their asses).